Crafting Gift Bags out of Photo Posters

The old saying “you eat with your eyes first” is usually applied to food, but you can also increase the gift recipient’s pleasant anticipation while unwrapping their present by putting special care in the gift-wrapping. It’s really easy to wrap presents in gift-wrapping paper and ribbon if they’re square. If the present has a bit of an odder shape, then it’s much easier to pack it in a gift bag. Here we’ll show you how you can create and give away your very own gift bags this Christmas.

The Right Motif

The advantage of creating something yourself is that you can design it exactly the way you want it. When you fold gift bags using your own photos, you’ll really be able to let your creativity take over.

You can design your gift bags in such a way that the gift recipient will be able to immediately recognise who the gift is from. For this, you can use your own photos from the last Christmas celebration or perhaps photograph your own Christmas decorations at home. Motifs with fir branches, candles, Christmas tree decorations, or gingerbread are perfect for fostering Christmas spirit. You could either use a series of several photos that are similar or choose one of your most favourite photos to use for all of your gift bags and just adjust the size for each one.

You could also design the bags according to the interests of each gift recipient to ensure every child finds the right gift under the Christmas tree. If going this route, there are of course endless possibilities of what kind of motif to use and these don’t necessarily have to be Christmas-themed. If using images from the Internet, you should pay attention to the their image resolution and size. If searching for images using Google, you can go to “Tools” and adjust the search settings accordingly to only search for images in an extra large format. You can find high-quality photos on free image websites such as Pexels and Pixabay.

Choose images that are in landscape format. The main portion of each photo should be approximately in the middle of the image. The sides will later be folded to create the side panels and back of the bag.

Ordering the Photo Poster

Once you’ve gathered together the photos you’d like to use for your gift bags, you can begin the ordering process on ifolor. Our photo posters are made from strong photo paper and are thus well suited for making sturdy gift bags.

Using the 13 various poster sizes available from ifolor, you can craft 13 different sized gift bags. Keep in mind that the posters will become a few centimetres smaller when folding them. If you subtract 2-3 cm from the height of the landscape format, you’ll end up with the approximate height of your gift bag. These couple of centimetres will be needed to make the bottom of your bag. The width of your gift bag will be about half of the width of the landscape format photo poster.

You can already upload all the images you want to use during the first creation process. You can continue to use all of these images until checkout. So you’ll only need to upload your images once and then you can create several posters one after the other. Once you’re done designing your posters according to your specifications you can then click on checkout and finish your order.

Folding the Bags

Once you receive your posters in the mail after a few days, you can begin folding your bags. If you’re not too confident with your folding technique to start doing the first steps directly with your high-quality photo print, you can first practice making the folds according to these instructions using a simple sheet of paper.

Step 1: Lay the photo poster in front of you in landscape format with the image side facing down on the table. In order to protect the image side of the poster, you can put a large and soft piece of paper or cloth underneath.

Step 2: Bring together the outer ends of the poster and attach these together using tape or glue.

Step 3: Fold the lower end of the poster upwards. The bottom of your bag will end up being twice as wide as the portion you’re now folding upwards.

Step 4: Fold the upper portion of the fold you just made back onto the table to end up with a triangle at the end of each side.

Step 5: Fold the upper and lower edges of this resulting hexagon to the middle and affix the edges together with a piece of tape. Now your bag has its bottom.

Step 6: This step is optional. This step will give your bag straight edges on the sides. Fold the long sides of the bag inwards corresponding to the tips of the diamonds of the bottom of your bag. Flip over the bag and fold the sides again in the opposite direction.

Step 7: Carefully open up the bag and shape it into its final form. You could optionally punch a hole into the top of the bag so you can close it with a nice ribbon.